A Comparative Study of Initial Involvement in Gangs and Political Extremism

ABSTRACT

There is a paucity of research comparing gang members and domestic extremists and extant studies find few explicit linkages. Despite this, there remains a great deal of interest in possible similarities between these criminal groups. Driving this interest is the possibility of adapting policies and practices aimed at preventing entry into criminal groups. A critical first step to determining compatibility is to examine the circumstances of the individuals who enter these organizations and better describe the entry processes. This study provides a unique comparison of entry into these groups by drawing on four broad empirically derived mechanisms of group entry using forty-five in-person interviews of U.S. gang members and thirty-eight life history narratives of individuals who radicalized in the United States. Our results reveal that each of the four conceptual categories appeared to influence initial involvement; however, no single mechanism described involvement in criminal groups or differentiated involvement across the gangs and extremist groups.

KEYWORDS:

• Violent extremism
• gangs
• criminal groups
• terrorism
• entry processes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

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48. This overlap should be interpreted with caution, however. The year of exposure for extremists reflects the earliest date at which the individual’s involvement in illegal extremist behavior became public knowledge—not necessarily the date of initial involvement. Moreover, there is often a multi-year lag period between initial involvement in extremism and first known public knowledge of extremist behavior.

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51. Code descriptions are summarized here due to space limitations; the full coding guide is available upon request.

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55. Gang members and extremists are identified by the letter “G” and “E” respectively, followed by a number not tied to their identity.

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75. While most social processes are insulated from this critique, we acknowledge that the use of message boards and forums, as well as YouTube and other video sharing are, of course, more recent developments and were only prevalent for a portion of the cases. Supporting this contention, recent cases of domestic extremism have highlighted the role of the internet and media in producing environments conducive to violence; Sarah Mervosh, “Mass Shootings at Houses of Worship: Pittsburgh Attack Was Among the Deadliest,” The New York Times, October 28, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/us/mass-shootings-church-synagogue-temple.html. All the same, we believe that as a comparative examination the value added by monitoring emerging trends in initial involvement merits its consideration here.

76. John Horgan, “From Profiles to Pathways and Roots to Routes: Perspectives from Psychology on Radicalization into Terrorism,” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 618, no. 1 (July 1, 2008): 80–94, https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716208317539.

77. See for example, David C. Pyrooz and James A. Densley, “On Public Protest, Violence, and Street Gangs,” Society 55, no. 3 (June 1, 2018): 229–36, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-018-0242-1; Matthew Valasik and Shannon E. Reid, “The Schrödinger’s Cat of Gang Groups: Can Street Gangs Inform Our Comprehension of Skinheads and Alt-Right Groups?” Deviant Behavior 40, no. 10 (October 3, 2019): 1245–59, https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2018.1479916.

78. Pete Simi, Kathleen Blee, Matthew DeMichele, and Steven Windisch, “Addicted to Hate: Identity Residual among Former White Supremacists,” American Sociological Review 82, no. 6 (December 1, 2017): 1167–87, https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122417728719.

79. Michael A. Jensen, Anita Atwell Seate, and Patrick A. James, “Radicalization to Violence: A Pathway Approach to Studying Extremism,” Terrorism and Political Violence 32, no. 5 (April 9, 2018): 1067–1090, https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2018.1442330.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael H. Becker

Michael H. Becker is an independent researcher. He holds an M.A. in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland—College Park, focusing on individual and group causes of participation in violent extremism, process and outcome measures in P/CVE programming, and theoretical testing. His work has been featured in the European Journal of Criminology, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and Criminology & Criminal Justice.

Scott H. Decker

Scott Decker, PhD, is Senior Scientist at CNA. His primary research and policy interests are in criminal justice policy, gangs, and police reform. He is Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University. His most recent book is Competing for Control: Gangs and the Social Order of Prisons (Cambridge University Press) with David C. Pyrooz.

Gary LaFree

Gary LaFree is the Director of the Maryland Crime Research Innovation Center (MCRIC) and a Professor and Chair of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland—College Park. His research is on the causes and consequences of violent crime and terrorism. His most recent books are Putting Terrorism in Context (with Laura Dugan and Erin Miller) and Countering Terrorism (with Martha Crenshaw).

David C. Pyrooz

David Pyrooz is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Faculty Associate of the Institute of Behavioral Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. His research interests are in the areas of gangs and criminal networks, incarceration and reentry, and developmental and life course criminology. He received the New Scholar Award from the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences in 2015 and the Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology in 2016. His most recent book is Competing for Control: Gangs and the Social Order of Prison (Cambridge University Press, 2019).

Kyle Ernest

Kyle Ernest is an Evaluative Consultant, having recently graduated with her PhD from Arizona State University. Research interests include process and impact evaluations of victim and offender service programs with a focus in the field of restorative justice using mixed methods research designs.

Patrick A. James

Patrick A. James is a Public Policy Associate Manager at Facebook and recently worked extensively as a Project Manager on the Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States (PIRUS) data project at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the and the University of Maryland—College Park. He holds an M.A. in International Studies from the University of Denver, focusing on political violence, asymmetric conflict, Middle East policy, and international security issues.